


To Be Left Behind

by Jen (ConsultingWriters)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Mycroft/Greg are referenced, Mycroft/Sherlock brotherly relationship also explored, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 22:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/728725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsultingWriters/pseuds/Jen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moriarty has Sherlock and John. Only one will be saved.</p>
<p>Based on That Scene in Batman: The Dark Knight.</p>
<p>
  <i>Sherlock intentionally flashes through every second he’s spent with John, everything he can, the moment they met, the stolen glances, the brushes of hand, skin on skin, falling, flying, meeting, discovering a world that isn’t his, a world he never thought he would have, kisses, heat, warmth, passion. Arguments at three in the morning, the skull on the wall, the Monopoly set which joined Cluedo two years later and John’s expression when he saw.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to placeofold for prompting! My darling, thank you for everything.
> 
> I hope you enjoy, ladies and gentlemen. Jen.

Sherlock wakes feeling like somebody has hit him very hard over the head, several times. Judging by the slight, almost imperceptible crunching when he rolls his head – dried filaments of hair, matted together with blood – this is probably an almost accurate conclusion. His vision is not compromised, affording him the ability to start taking in information.

Initial assessment: physical injury minimal, some discomfort but non-inhibitive. Bruising, possible contusion to skull. Bruising to ribs and lower torso. Unharmed otherwise; drugs would be neater, possible that his captors know of his history. Hands bound with industrial-strength tape; captors either poor, or aware of ability to easily break out of metal handcuffs. Tape difficult to break, adhesive, cannot slip. Ankles similarly bound.

Further out: barrels, smell indicating petrol or equivalent. Multiple. Captors have means, then; the binding is intentional. Given state of physical self and proximity to barrels, probable threat to life. 

A test of the binds leaves no doubt that he cannot escape without assistance; the chair is heavy-based, sturdy. Even knocking it over would achieve limited amounts, except increased level of physical discomfort. Table in front equally solid, of little use. Small radio device on the table, light blinking brightly.

Given recent cases, only one conclusion: Moriarty. Elaborate set-up indicates a far large schematic than just himself.

“Hello?” Sherlock asks guardedly, voice rough. The voice that replies is not the one Sherlock expects.

“Sherlock?”

John. His John. Sherlock begins to fit pieces together, grappling for data. “John, I’m here.”

“ _Shit_ ,” John curses, panic laced through him. Sherlock’s expression doesn’t flicker. “Sherlock, jesus, where are you? Are you alright?”

“Predicament less than ideal,” Sherlock states drily, trying to find the source of ignition from the barrels threatening to consume him; he cannot see the full way around him, the bindings inhibiting his movements. “From your tone I’m assuming your situation is similarly unstable?”

“It’s Moriarty,” John says in a rush, confirming Sherlock’s original conclusion. “We’re at opposite ends of the city, he’s leaving it to others to work out who to save.”

That gives Sherlock pause for a horrible moment, mind flickering through options faster than he knew himself capable of. John is still speaking in his ear, rapid-fire, a volley of gunshots. “They’ll only get to one of us, and Sherlock – it’s going to be you, we both know that, you’re far more valuable than me.”

Sherlock finishes his deductions, his mind settling, a haze settling over the conclusions he has drawn. He knows what will happen.

“John, don’t be absurd,” Sherlock says, with such brilliant, aggravating calm John could punch him. “I will not be witnessing your death today.”

“Moriarty…”

“I am aware of what he has done,” Sherlock interrupts, no longer battling; there is no point. “I have no doubt that he is being wholly honest, and has planned this quite perfectly.”

John is still fighting; Sherlock can hear it over the radio, the scrambling, scratching sounds quite distinctive. “Sherlock, don’t even think it,” John warns, voice dangerous.

“Mycroft will have intervened,” Sherlock says, as though it is the simplest answer in the world. “He knows that your demise will mean the end of me; it would seem counterproductive, therefore, to lose both of us.”

John’s breathing is laboured, down the radio. “Sherlock, don’t say that,” John manages, with devastating gravity. “When they come for you, you will keep going. Without me, I mean. You’ll… you’ll do experiments, and you’ll solve cases, yeah? You don’t need me. You’ll take down Moriarty, jesus, you’re the only one who can…”

“Mycroft could; he merely underestimated the threat,” Sherlock says calmly, settling into the chair, letting his limbs fall slack. If he is going to die, he would like to be comfortable. “Mycroft will not let this lie, regardless. I would forecast Moriarty’s internment and/or death in a matter of hours, rather than days.” 

Mycroft knows that losing John would be the end of his brother; Sherlock had taken this long in his life to find a love, to find even friendship. The loss would wrench away what little he has left; then either directly, or through a cocaine proxy, he would die. 

Sherlock trusts Mycroft to make the right decision. He always has, in the past, no matter how painful or unpleasant. Mycroft is a twat, of immense proportions, but he loves his younger brother more than expression.

He loves Sherlock enough, in fact, to know what is a kinder death. He loves Sherlock enough to kill him.

Sherlock closes his eyes, listening to John’s voice. Even in panic, John’s voice is oddly calming; the terrifying rush of the world, everything Sherlock sees and observes, is still around John. The burbling curses and panic and hysteria are all parts of John, the soldier, the man; he fights, he screams, he refuses to concede defeat at any cost.

For a brief moment, Sherlock considered the variables in his deduction; there was still a margin for error, but Sherlock was relatively certain on one key point: Moriarty would feed incorrect addresses. If Mycroft had predictably become involved, he would predict that; he would withhold that deduction, manipulate the outcome so John lived.. If Mycroft was not involved, than it was simpler; the Met police would attempt to find Sherlock, and in doing so, inadvertently save John.

In either scenario, the extraordinary, individual brilliance of John Watson – a brilliance so different from Sherlock’s own – would survive.

“John, please,” Sherlock soothed, as John screamed out in anger, in panic. “Please calm down. If this is the last we shall speak, I would prefer to speak properly.”

John calmed in an instant like a deflated balloon, his breathing still irregular. “Sherlock, I love you,” he said harshly, almost brutally, a challenge.

Sherlock let out a laugh; John had never heard anything like it from Sherlock. The man laughed from adrenaline, from running through London streets catching a killer. He laughed through his own brilliance, excitement fuelling the sound. He had never laughed like this: quiet, confined.

John knew that even with the years he’d spent with Sherlock, the hours and minutes and days and years and months, he’d never come even close to finding everything about him. He had barely scratched the surface. And now he was going to die, and leave Sherlock to deteriorate back, regress to being half the man he was even when John met him, all the years of their association, relationship, falling by the wayside.

“John, I have loved you since I’ve known you,” Sherlock said honestly. It took him a long time to understand, appreciate that; from the moment he began to _know_ John Watson, his life became inextricably linked with the good doctor’s.

Mycroft would not disappoint him. Not on this.

John can survive on his own; he has before, after all. Broken, hurt, pained, he will still eventually patch himself up and move on. Sherlock lacks that trait, the simple ability to court with loss, plagued with sentiment. He knows himself too well to contemplate what would happen if he lost John; he can forecast his own ending.

A sigh, soft, tentative. He is resigned, calm. “Be safe, John,” Sherlock breathes to John. “Keep from harm, and tell Greg to look after Myc for me; this will damage him otherwise, regardless of what he says to the contrary.”

“Stop it, Sherlock, stop saying goodbye like it’s you, it’s not going to be you, you hear me, it’s _not_ ,” John snaps, and John is falling apart because the world _needs_ Sherlock Holmes, it doesn’t need him, somebody so utterly unimportant, so entirely average and mundane and boring and _ordinary._ The world is filled with _ordinary_ , and it is people like Sherlock who make everybody else keep striving, keep moving, keep soaring upwards for the stars, seeing that somebody can already be there.

On a purely selfish level, John simply can’t watch Sherlock die again.

“I am more grateful than I could express for what we’ve had,” Sherlock murmurs, dreaming of John’s touches, the smell of tea and ink and soup and aftershave, the feel of quarter of a millimetre stubble, the familiar map of wrinkles and scars, the cropped hair, everything. _Everything_.

John laughs, a note of hysteria. “You saved my life, more than once,” John tells him, and Sherlock knows the man is crying in that way John can, where it doesn’t seem to travel to his voice or his posture. It merely sits in his eyes and washes out, until he can swallow them back, take out all emotion and remain the good soldier.

“Yes, as you did mine,” Sherlock reminds, smiling distantly at the memory of a gunshot and a bleeding man, and anger, and the shrieked cry of _Moriarty_. He remembers John in dozens of scenarios, saving him each time in a new way, rescuing him from relapse and loneliness and sadness and pain.

Oh, Sherlock has handled this all so badly. He should have confirmed Moriarty’s death as far as the rooftop of Barts, sent another handful of bullets into his body, ensured that there was no chance of the man returning like this.

It is far too late for reflection, at this stage, if he’s quite honest.

“Sherlock…”

Sherlock’s breath is beginning to quicken. He knows he will die. The clock ticks seconds, minutes, creeping towards the hour; Moriarty is poetic. That will be their moment, when the hour strikes. The cavalry needs to save John, first. The worry that they will be too late claws in his gut, a live creature.

The door slams open. Sherlock’s eyes widen for an awful, terrible moment. John is suddenly still.

“No, _no_ ,” John’s screams rip through the heavy heartbeat of silence. “Sherlock! Go find _him_ , you _bastards_ , you need _him_ …”

“I love you, John,” Sherlock says over John’s screaming, eyes darting to the clock on the wall opposite, vision blurring abruptly, watered over. Seconds, mere seconds; John is being manhandled away, his cries becoming fainter, Sherlock feeling dampness on his cheeks as he listens to John’s life being saved.

He is prepared to die alone, it seems oddly apt – he wastes no time in disappearing into his head, blotting out everything else in the few moments remaining.

Sherlock intentionally flashes through every second he’s spent with John, everything he can, the moment they met, the stolen glances, the brushes of hand, skin on skin, falling, flying, meeting, discovering a world that isn’t his, a world he never thought he would have, kisses, heat, warmth, passion. Arguments at three in the morning, the skull on the wall, the Monopoly set which joined Cluedo two years later and John’s expression when he saw.

_Sentiment, dear brother_ , Sherlock laughs in his mind palace, as the walls crumble, and he clings to every fractional, broken second he’s spent with an army doctor who, of all the people in all the world, taught Sherlock Holmes, the sociopath, the lonely man, the pale inhuman creature, how to love.

John’s touches are warm, his voice rings out again and again, replaying the last moments Sherlock heard, and Sherlock hates how hurt he sounds, but John will survive. John always does survive. It’s one of the reasons Sherlock loves him. John can, and will, survive where he cannot.

He couldn’t live without John, after all – that is the vital distinction. Sherlock Holmes can do many things, but not that.

Sherlock’s mind palace is rent with damage, but he knows where to go. The rooms are burning as they stop being required, memories of his lifetime, every fraction of relevant information, Sherlock’s precious hard drive, melting.

It seems to happen oddly slowly, the ignition, the consumption. The world is unbelievably bright, heat flares across his skin, eyes wide and blue and burning and unseeing, taking in nothing, mind lost to an empty ballroom with a single man, a single man with a limp that doesn’t exist, a filthy temper, a penchant for tea, ridiculous jumpers.

Sherlock smiles, feels nothing, as fire pours from every orifice, and the building explodes.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments etc are always wonderful things, if you have the time and/or inclination.
> 
> For my Lex, as always.


End file.
